Okay, it is not football boot related, but this is the biggest shock in sporting history, so it at least deserves a little mention. We aren’t saying that we saw Leicester winning the league, we didn’t. If we did, I would not be sat here writing this now, I would be in Spain trying to work out if I cared about the impact that a 12th cocktail will have on my liver. It is no secret that the Champions-to-be were 5000/1 to win the league in August, so this is an article merely stating why Leicester’s situation is surprising, but not 5000/1 surprising.
- Claudio Ranieri
Although his last job was a rather disappointing affair with one-time European Champions Greece (losing twice to the Faroe Islands in his spell there), Ranieri is a world class manager. He has managed Juventus, Atletico and Monaco to name a few, and has achieved promotion with seven separate teams. He is undoubtedly above the likes of Leicester City, which is by far the smallest team he has managed in his 28-year career. He is used to 60,000 seater stadiums and footballing stars… The King Power is half that size and Leicester’s whole team is worth a third of the price paid for Raheem Sterling.
2. No pressure
Arsenal’s lack of Premier League trophies over the past 10+ seasons ensured that a fair lump of pressure has been on them for a while now, none more so when they were top of the league at Christmas. Inevitably, it became too much and they yet again bottled it under pressure and fell away. City’s millions meant that there is always pressure on them to succeed and the fact that little Leicester were above them, meant that Spurs were even expected to win the league towards the end of the season.
Nobody believed Leicester would win it, even as little as a month ago. We were all waiting for the wheels to falls off and them to drop down to fourth or fifth place; which is still ridiculously impressive. The lack of pressure enabled the team to play with freedom for the entirety of the season.
Equally, the squad is full of previously unheard-of players, either bought on a free or for the price of a modest one-bedroom flat in Grimsby. None of them had a £30million price tag to shake off, or a 30-goals-a-season reputation to live up to.
3. The fans
Where Arsenal fans have a right to moan, City fans barely fill the Etihad and Chelsea fan’s whereabouts is still currently unknown, Leicester’s blue army of followers have roared vigorously throughout their team’s unlikely title challenge.
Every home game at the King Power has had an electric atmosphere generated by thousands of optimistic and noisy Leicester fans, partly in shock at what they’re witnessing. They’ve backed their team all the way and it evidently makes a difference.
4. Opposition
Chelsea’s collapse from Champions to mid-table fodder was unexpected, with Jose Mourinho still the manager at the start of the season and the squad relatively unchanged; not many would predict that they would not at least challenge for the title.
Arsenal’s challenge hit its annual bump around February, Spurs never really mounted a proper challenge and thus lacked experience. Their squad this season is full of quality, but didn’t provide as much of a challenge to top spot as a team full of quality players and Premier League winners may have produced.
Man United and Loius Van Gaal have still been dicking about with this magical ‘philosophy’ which so far seems to be trying to pay as much as the bank will let him on random foreign youngsters, scoring as few goals as possible, then happily collecting all the plaudits when the team barely scraps together a 1-0 home win against Stoke.
As for Liverpool, they are still not back to the force that they were when Gerrard, Sturridge and Suarez were all on fire, and this season was more of a transitional period to ease Klopp into the roll.
So at the start of the season, Man City and Chelsea were really the two front-runners for the title. But as Mourinho slowly orchestrated The Blues’ capitulation, and it came to light that Manuel Pelligrini was going to be replaced at the end of the season by Pep Guardiola (catalysing a falter in City’s form), Leicester found themselves top, with their only real challengers an inexperienced and young Spurs side.
5. Leicester’s form last season
They may have only just escaped relegation last year, but their form towards the back-end of the season which was instrumental in keeping them up, was better than most in the entire league. From the start of this season, The Foxes continued that great run of form and saw it through right until the end, proving that the saying ‘consistency wins titles’ has a lot of truth to it.
6. No cup distractions
Almost exclusively when a team is challenging for a title, they are also in Europe, and seriously contending for the F.A Cup and/or the League Cup as well. By October, Leicester were out of the League Cup. They exited the F.A Cup after resting players at home to Spurs in a 2-0 third round replay defeat, and of course they were as much in Europe as Brazil is. So from January, Leicester could solely concentrate on their league campaign, where Arsenal, City and Spurs were all challenging in Europe and at least one of the domestic cups.
7. Injury-free
They haven’t completely been without injury, but for the most part they have been lucky. Their goal-scoring force of Jamie Vardy and Rihad Mahrez have played most games in the league. Other vital players such as; Wes Morgan, Danny Drinkwater, Robert Huth, Shinji Okazaki, Kaspar Schmeichel, Marc Albrighton and Ngolo Kante have all racked up over 30 league appearances.
In contrast, United, Arsenal and City’s injury woes have been vast and damaging.
8. Power of Buddha
We’re clutching at straws with this final one, but in 2014, the Leicester owner flew in Buddhist monks from Thailand to bless the stadium and players. The following matchday, The Foxes came from 2-0 down to beat Manchester United 5-3 in a Premier League classic. Far-fetched we know, but for all of you spiritual or religious fans out there, maybe, just maybe Leicester winning the Premier League was an intended miracle.
